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COVID-19 update: CDC says virus close to losing epidemic status

Daily U.S. COVID-19 deaths

But we’re all supposed to die! According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the number of deaths from the Wuhan virus had declined so much that the agency is on the verge of calling the epidemic over.

The CDC qualifies a disease outbreak as an “epidemic” if the number of deaths attributable to the disease exceeds a certain percentage of total deaths per week. That threshold for pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 fluctuates slightly depending on the time of year, ranging from around 7% at the height of flu season to around 5% during less virulent months.

…The latest data show that the percentage of deaths in the country attributable to those factors had as of the last week in June reached its lowest point since the end of last year, becoming “equal to the [current] epidemic threshold of 5.9%,” the CDC said.

The numbers will change as more death certificates are processed, with I expect some health agencies in some states continuing their effort to fudge the numbers to pump up the COVID-19 totals. Regardless, the graph above (source here.) clearly shows that the epidemic is declining, with daily deaths dropping steadily since early May. (The two spikes of deaths on May 7 and June 25 are because New York and New Jersey suddenly added a whole slew of new deaths, under suspicious circumstances.)

Actual numbers daily since June 25

The graph shows a very slight increase in the past week, which could be attributed to the uptick in new cases, but if so the increase is tiny, and is close to statistically insignificant. The table to the right shows the actual numbers of deaths per day nationwide since that June 25 New Jersey spike, with the daily New York numbers thrown in as well. Not only is it hard to measure any significant uptick, the numbers in New York have been so low in the past nine days it has become absurd that the Democratically-controlled local governments there continue to insist on maintaining their draconian lock downs and mask requirements.

That the press is now focusing on the increase in cases, when the death toll has been subsiding so steadily, demonstrates their corruption and inability or refusal to do their job properly, If anything, it labels them as fear-mongers screaming fire in a theater (which is not on fire) who should be ostracized from society.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

17 comments

  • Gary A Fisher

    Another “crisis” slipping inexorably out of their grasp. The phrase “if we can save even a single life” will soon be invoked.

  • Chris

    Hi Bob

    Clicking into the story from Just News and the into the CDC site
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

    It seems this observation came out July 3rd. This is of course a weekly update but the timing of the statement –
    “Mortality attributed to COVID-19 decreased compared to last week and is currently at the epidemic threshold but will likely increase as additional death certificates are processed.”

    The statement recognizes the possible reduction under epidemic status -but released July 3rd. And then gives a possibility that there will be a change in status due to other data inspection -death certs.
    I wonder if this dip below the edge of epidemic threshold will be mentioned again if the data continues down? Or will the dip be unmentioned the documentation review takes the count back above the epidemic level.

    All this may be matter of course and innocent but the timing and wording make me suspicious of the government I will never trust again. – and haven’t for a long time.

  • F16 Guy

    I hope the end of this hoax is near. However, I have been saying for months that I know the EXACT date the virus “epidemic” will be officially over:

    The day after President Trump is re-elected!

  • Cotour

    Ron Paul, Doctor, on the approaching herd immunity:

    https://youtu.be/EcYcmIPkgak

    And that really is the only solution here, nature. Vaccination? I won’t be taking it, what about you? Where will it be produced? China? I try not to knowingly ingest anything from China.

  • wayne

    Cotour-
    I won’t be taking any china-virus vaccine, either. (not opposed to vaccines in general, but not whatever ‘they’ come up with for this.)

    You would be amazed at the number of OTC and RX pharmaceuticals, that are almost exclusively made, off-shore. It’s shocking actually. China is the biggie, followed by India.

  • Cotour

    I JUST REALIZED

    This is a quick Jordon Petersen interview by a young Ausi, Communist / Socialist (?) millennial, Tom Bollard. Mr. Bollard states clearly at the end of the interview that he is fully on board with the Communist / Socialist agenda to his bosses. So this IMO appears not to be an ideology but a scheme to gain social advantage.

    https://youtu.be/kxgeevlRElw

    And if you listen, Dr. Petersen brings out the reality of what its like being an unaccomplished or un substantial, personally and / or financially, young person today, specifically being a male. And what I realize is that this young white and probably very privileged himself young man doing the interviewing, and being destroyed by Dr. Petersen in the nicest possible manner, appears to be attempting to in some way shape or form modify the existing cultural / Social model in order to gain an advantage. To game the existing system in other words using Socialism to take from one to give to another. Him / Them.

    A system that by the way has been steadily perverted and destroyed by the constant Leftist / Socialist / Culture of dependency bent in most all Western governments over the last 30 plus years. You know, the Liberal Democrats and their “compassionate” front that hides their ruthless political power aspirations.

    That is what jumps out at me when I listen and watch this particular interaction between an older and very much more experienced man, and a very much unaccomplished and un experienced younger man who has like many other young people seem to have adopted this “New” Socialist / Communist attitude towards existence for what it appears is a way to gain an advantage and to acquire “Success” and wealth.

    So is all this righteous indignation and Socialist talk really all just about clever and practical human beings just finding a short cut to personal success in a world that has become hard to gain in? A way to game the system?

  • Chris

    Vaccination IS Herd Immunity. – It takes away those who would be susceptible so that the virus cannot spread.

  • Rick

    I read an article from an “expert” in the UK where he says that they may never bring a vaccine to production.
    Since it is unethical to knowingly infect someone with Covid, and the infection rate is so low that they will never know if it is effective.

  • pzatchok

    We used to have chicken pox parties.

    If one kid in the neighborhood got chicken pox all the other kids would get sent over their house for the day.

  • Col Beausabre

    Several months ago, before the Panic, a neighbor of mine was diagnosed as needing a pacemaker. The installation was scheduled, then cancelled as “not urgent” due to the shutdown. Last Tuesday, he was taken the hospital by an ambulance. Yesterday, I saw his brother at his house and walked over to ask how he was doing. His brother told me my neighbor had died of heart failure Friday night. I suppose he’ll be listed as a Wuhan Flu victim, even though he wasn’t. He was a victim of the Wuhan Flu Panic. So for all the “excess deaths” due to Wuhan Flu, how many are there due to panic and overreaction. Who is counting and reporting on them…

  • Steve

    I live in Ontario, Canada, in a city of about 380,000 people. Since the pandemic began, we’ve had just 625 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 505 recoveries and just 57 deaths.

    In fact, we’ve seen no new deaths for almost two weeks now and this is a pattern being reflected by virtually all (save for a few, mostly in the Greater Toronto Area) public health units in Ontario.

    Case rates have also fallen like a rock, with a total of 138 new cases being reported in the entire province of Ontario as of yesterday. Without discounting the seriousness of the coronavirus, these numbers are vastly lower than one would see with seasonal flu outbreaks.

    The public health unit my city are now mandating the use of masks if going into a store or other places where contact with large numbers of people is likely, but this seems more like an exercise of an overabundance of caution than anything else.

    The provincial government are looking at moving the province into Phase 3 soon, possibly by the end of the month. The government are holding off on doing so as they are waiting for more data to come in about the recent move into Phase 2 – that is, whether case rates have increased along with deaths, and these have not yet surfaced due to lags in getting test reports and other data.

    Phase 3 would mean pretty much everything can reopen, but large events like concerts and sporting events will remain restricted.

    If we don’t see a rise in cases two weeks after Phase 3 starts, and no new deaths AND we don’t get hit with a second wave this coming fall and winter, then it will probably be safe to say the pandemic is over.

    All the signs seem to be pointing to an end of the pandemic.

  • Nightfall

    The current word is “cumulative cases”. First, that “cases” is people who have been infected or exposed to the virus, at any time. They ARE NOT “cases” if the person was infected back in march and is no longer infectious. Do you really think a person can get infected, and stay infected, from March to July, five months? They will either get sick, or in most cases, not get sick (95% plus), and at the end of at most 20 days or so, no longer be infectious (or sick), and no longer count as a “case”.

    “Cumulative cases” is an impossibility, as impossible as talking about “cumulative snow” in summer.

  • Rose

    Conventional wisdom has it that as testing becomes more available, the percent positive decreases (assuming a steady infection rate), since with limited tests the more like cases are tested first. But something which could turn that on its head is if additional test availability allows positive patients to be retested more often. Do we have any numbers on this? How often, on average, are positive patients retested, and how has this changed over time?

  • pzatchok

    I know for a fact that our shop demands a period of 2 weeks off as soon as you test positive. One week if you only admit to being around someone infected.

    Then a retest to come back.

    Can you guess how many asymptomatic people have passed you by today? Bumped into you, coughed in the room a second before you walked in?

    How do you KNOW you are not that asymptomatic person? Did you go out and get a positive anti body test back?

    Let my people go!
    As the saying goes.

  • L Johnson

    This is how Oregon is artificially inflating active coronavirus cases. By dragging the presumed recovery period out to 60 days, rather than the usual 14 plus three without symptoms, they get to count old recovered cases in the current numbers.

    https://www.klamathcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/25770/07022020-KCPH-announces-change-in-COVID-19–recovery-data-v3?bidId=

  • Phill O

    For those who advocate wearing masks:

    https://www.jigidi.com/solve/cjhhhlnm/l/

  • Phill O

    Risk Caving not on the list so must be pretty safe!

    https://www.jigidi.com/created.php?id=HJO1QOMF

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